


Let your Heart be Light

by knune



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief mention of abortion, Child Death, Christmas, Community: space_wrapped, Established Relationship, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mpreg, Nightmares, Unhappiest Christmas story possibly ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:50:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knune/pseuds/knune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Some souls die in battle, some die in their sleep, and some die for no reason at all." </p><p>Leonard McCoy dreams of flames and fire, of a child just out of his reach, of a child he cannot save.  When he wakes up, he prays this doesn't come true. But he definitely has a sneaking suspicion that he isn't going to have a very Merry Christmas at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let your Heart be Light

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the following space_wrapped prompt: 
> 
> I walked down the dirt road to church  
> It was simple then  
> Together on Christmas we prayed  
> It was simple then
> 
> With a candle in my hand  
> I heard my Daddy singing  
> In church I wasn't alone  
> It was simple then  
> \-- "It Was Simple Then” 
> 
>  
> 
> Also based on a bit off of Mass Effect 3 (and I might have borrowed a planet as well), and this particular song off the [OST](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGHA9oO1Ybg). 
> 
> One of these days I'm going to write something happy, something where people don't die and have shitty holidays. But for now, have yourself a merry, angsty Christmas! Please, please heed the tags.

*

Leonard runs in his dreams.

Barefoot, the grass crunches beneath his toes with each step he takes and it’s painfully sharp like this is a field of broken glass and there’s sure to be cuts beneath his heels, blood pouring out of every wound. He leaves a sordid trail of ruby behind him but this is a pain he barely even feels. It doesn’t register as long as his feet are moving, as long as his hand is stretched out in front of him, reaching, grabbing for something he can’t quite get his fingers around.

It’s there – he’s there – at the corner of his eye. And every turn he makes, every step he takes, is never good enough. His fingers always ghost at the small white tunic, never once catching hold of the soft material, and he’s eternally left chasing what will never be in his reach.

*

When Leonard wakes up, it’s to Jim’s wide eyes and furrowed brow. There are always questions lingering behind Jim’s dry and cracked lips but there’s a long day weaved into his muscles, too little sleep clinging to his posture, and Leonard manages to grow a silver tongue.

“It’s nothing,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to Jim’s bare shoulder.

 It’s a silver tongue that turns to lead the second sleep grabs ahold of Jim and Leonard spends the rest of the night staring at the ceiling, his heart beating erratically, his fingers clawing into sweat soaked sheets.

Leonard can lie to everyone except himself.

*

“You look tired,” Joanna says quietly during breakfast. She’s always been too smart, wise beyond her years, and there is no hiding from her.

Leonard pushes his bowl of fruit salad toward her. “Just haven’t been sleeping well, sweet pea,” he replies, carefully avoiding her eyes. The silver tongue doesn’t work on Joanna (it doesn’t really work on Jim either).

“Have Daddy read you a bedtime story. It works for me.” She smiles and she’s missing both of her front teeth. When did that happen? Where was he? His little girl is growing up beneath his nose and he hasn’t even noticed.

“Good idea, baby girl.” He forces a smile and changes the subject.

*

Leonard is running, the grass hard as granite beneath his bare feet, and he’s reaching out – reaching – fingers stretched long and wide. And still, it’s not good enough. The white tunic is out of his reach.

“Stop!” He begs and pleads and for a split second, the tunic stills in the distance and Leonard skids to a halt.

And there, finally, he gets a glimpse, just a shadow, of the figure he’s chasing. Blonde hair, hazel eyes, a ski jump nose. A mesh of two becoming three (three becoming four).  

Then it’s over, and the tunic is on the run again. Leonard wakes up.

*

If you ask Leonard, a rusty tin can traveling through space is the last place children should be raised. The black is nothing but trouble – disease, danger, darkness, silence – the spiel is always the same. The black is one away mission gone wrong from losing everything, one angry Romulan away from a shattered life.

The black takes and takes and it hardly ever gives anything back.

But there’s this light, this small, tiny fucking light that shines so goddamn brightly in Jim’s eyes when he talks about space, the final frontier, the voyages of this fucking Starship _Enterprise_ that makes Leonard turn a blind eye. It makes him nod his head stupidly and swallow down the fear.

The black is no place to raise a family – but Leonard does it anyway.  

*

Jim is nothing but smiles when he visits Sickbay. His teeth are so white, Leonard is almost blinded, and he keeps his eyes on his desk, on the fingers that hands that fail him time and time again in his dreams.

And Jim is saying something, Leonard can hear the tone, the litany of words, but it’s mumbles, nonsense, and there’s a translation error from ear to brain. He’s lost, somewhere in his dreams, in those hands. And he thinks, if he was just a little faster, if he could just reach a little further – if –

Another set of hands inch their way into Leonard’s view, strong, familiar hands, and they cover his own. “Are you listening at all?”

Leonard finally looks up and Jim’s blinding smile has flipped upside down into something ugly and out of place. It’s the same look he sees in the middle of the night when he jerks away, when there’s sweat dripping down his back and his heart is desperately trying to claw its way out of his ribcage. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“Is this about those dreams you’re having?”

“No. That’s just – no. I’m fine.” The silver tongue is out and in full force. He squeezes Jim’s hands tightly between his own. This has to be enough, this has to be good enough for now. They’re just dreams. Just fucking _dreams_.

“You’d tell me if you weren’t okay, right?” Jim is leaning in now, across the desk, his chest pressing hard against the old fashioned oak Leonard requested so many years ago. “You’d tell me, Bones.”

“Of course I would.”

Of course.

*

Leonard is running, the grass razorblades beneath his feet, his hand stretched out and out. The boy he’s chasing, it’s a boy, always, _always_ out of reach.

There’s a faint whisper in his ear, a buzz that he wants to angrily swat at. These whispers grow and grow until they surround him, engulf him, and drown him out until he can’t hear the heaving of his own chest, the crunch of grass beneath his feet, the flap of the boy’s tunic in the air anymore.

_Thanks for the support._

_Buckle up._

_Bones._

_Help me._

_Please, end this._

_Son._

_I love you._

_Let me go._

_Papa._

 

In the faint artificial daylight, it’s the whispers that linger the most, that crawl up and down Leonard’s skin during a long shift in Sickbay, that sink like stone in his stomach and deepen the black bruises beneath his eyes.

His dreams haunt him but the whispers break him.

*

Joanna is six. _Six_. When Leonard closes his eyes, he still sees a small face, bundled somewhere in a mess of pink blankets. Time is a constant enemy and somehow, someway, they’ve survived six years with this precious little girl.

It’s six years of wonder, six years of hoping, six years of just getting by. Six years of being goddamn lucky.

When he looks at her, sitting beneath a far too real Christmas tree, hair carefully braided in pigtails, he sees the past rolling by like a series of still pictures in his head. And he still wonders where the time has gone.

She’s ripping open a package, her gap-tooth grin reminiscent of Jim’s all too perfect, pearly smile. Leonard doesn’t remember buying whatever is inside.

Leonard doesn’t even remember that it’s Christmas. But Jim is pressing a package into his hands and a wet kiss against his cheek.

“Merry Christmas, baby,” Jim says, soft and low, and whatever is in the gift doesn’t matter at all. This here, this picture perfect moment in the black is good enough. It’s a shame that Leonard knows it won’t last. It _can’t_.

*

Leonard is running, his chest heaving, his feet bleeding. He’s running from the whispers, toward the white tunic, the boy, the child. He’s running, so goddamn fast and the boy still eludes him at every turn.

“Please, stop,” Leonard pleads the constant mantra that falls from his lips every single night. And this time, this time the boy stops and turns.

He stands there, in the middle of this bleak field, his tunic flowing behind him, his feet as bare and red as Leonard’s. Then he reaches out, his fingers stretching towards Leonard’s open hands.

And this is Leonard’s chance, to finally grab hold, to wrap his grubby little hands around what he’s been chasing and chasing after. But his feet slide to a halt instead and his hands fly up to his face, protecting, guarding against a sudden heat.

The boy – the boy is being engulfed with flames, rising from beneath the shattered grass, clinging and clutching to his familiar blonde hair, to his white and flowing tunic. They’re too hot and Leonard can’t get through, can’t reach his hands in to save him.

And as Leonard’s knees hit the ground, the grass biting into his legs, his face wet, the whispers surround him, grow and strengthen until they’re no longer whispers but shouts. Loud, cavernous shouts that he won’t ever forget.

_Papa!_

*

When Leonard wakes up, his face is wet, his pillow is soaked, and there’s Jim staring at him with his stupid wide eyes and upside down smile.

“You’d tell me, right Bones?”

“It’s just a dream,” Leonard murmurs, his hands wiping at his cheeks. “Just a dream.”

*

Sickbay isn’t the safe haven it used to be. This was a place where Leonard could heal, could put his hands on a body and mold, bend, fix, _cure_ ; a place to forget, to delve into work and forget the darkness of his dreams, the heat of the flames.

But the power of medicine isn’t enough anymore and instead of forgetting, he remembers all the people he couldn’t save, all the times he’s held his fingers against a pulse point and felt nothing beneath the flesh. This place is now a reminder of all Leonard’s failures and he has many.

“Geoff would be more than happy to give you a sedative,” Christine chirps at him one morning, and Leonard isn’t sure what day of the week it is, what Stardate it is, if it even is morning or if he’s working the night shift now. “If you ask nicely.”

Leonard doesn’t ask. He’s perfectly capable of stealing his own sedatives if he wants to but he doesn’t. He doesn’t steal, he doesn’t ask, he doesn’t stop dreaming.

The dreams continue, the bags under his eyes grow deeper and darker, and Leonard learns to ignore, ignore, ignore. It’s really not that hard at all.

*

Jim’s pupils are blown wide open, choking out the blue until there’s almost nothing left but a blue solar eclipse of iris. There’s a bead of sweat trickling down his brow, scaling down the mountain of his face, through pox-marked cheek and rugged chin until it neatly falls on Leonard’s bare chest. It soothes, extinguishes the fire of Leonard’s heated flesh and he watches as another bead begins to make the same journey, over and over again.

“Bones?” Jim’s voice is soft, rough, and he’s asking permission right now. He’s three fingers deep within Leonard, twisting, scissoring, brushing against that one spot that makes Leonard’s toes curl. Then the fingers are gone and Jim’s cock is pressing against Leonard’s stretched hole.

And Leonard squirms now, arm shoots out and hand lands against Jim’s solid sternum.  “Wait, wait. We should…we should use protection.”

“What?” Jim sits back on his shins, his hands resting on Leonard’s splayed legs. “Are you fucking around on me?” That face is back, the one he makes when Leonard wakes up night after night, ugly upside down smile and all except this time, there’s anger, betrayal, and worry in his voice.

“No. Don’t be an idiot. I just don’t think we should have any more children. Not right now anyway.”

Jim pulls away, retreats to the edge of the bed and all Leonard can see is a smooth expanse of back, the curved notches of a spine. “What? We discussed this so long ago. We’ve been trying.”

They’ve been trying for months now, almost a year – a year of prenatal vitamins, avoiding alcohol and fucking like rabbits each and every day. And still, there’s no child, no pitter patter of little feet alongside Joanna’s.

“Just for now.” Leonard climbs out of the bed, sinks to his knees in front of his husband. “Let’s just give it a rest. Please.” He can tell there’s an argument on the end of Jim’s tongue, a storm of fighting and disagreement brewing behind his eyes and Leonard can’t talk his way out of this one. So he leans down and wraps his lips around Jim’s flagging erection and whatever was lingering behind Jim’s lips dies away with a soft groan.

It turns out that distraction is far better than a silver tongue anyway.

*

Jim shows up in Sickbay the next morning and Leonard isn’t surprised at all.

They hole up in his office, the door locked with Jim’s override and Christine is told not to disturb Dr. McCoy for anything short of a goddamn apocalypse. “Captain’s orders,” he adds unnecessarily but his voice is firm, harsh, and there is no questioning this authority.

And they sit there, staring at each other, with only the oak desk between them. The tension is thick and there are bags under Jim’s eyes too, dark and bruised and Leonard doesn’t know when this happened, when Jim’s face began to mirror his own, warp into this pathetic, exhausting display of pretending everything is okay.

Then finally, finally, Jim says something. “Leonard, tell me about your dreams.”

So Leonard does.

*

“Your esper ratings are zero.” Jim is sitting back in his chair, his hands lost in his hair. His eyes are narrowed, face pinched up like he’s lost in a fog and this is how Leonard feels every waking second of every day. “They can’t be premonitions, but we can ask Spock about this. Maybe he can do a meld on you.”

This is a talk Leonard never wanted to have, a talk he tried to avoid with lies built upon lies. He doesn’t know how to explain this, doesn’t know why these dreams disturb him so much, but he sure as fuck knows that he isn’t letting that green-blooded hobgoblin put his hands on him and delve around in his mind. “No. They’re just dreams. They don’t mean anything. Any moron with a psych degree could tell you that.”

“Did something happen on Epsilon IV? Did you eat something? Drink something? Touch something?” Jim’s reaching out, across the desk, grabbing Leonard’s hands in his own. It’s wrong to be on this side of the questioning, wrong to feel scrutinized for every detail of an away mission. _This_ is Leonard’s job.

“No. I’m fine, I feel fine. This isn’t goddamn alien voodoo. They’re just bad dreams. They’ll go away.” And Leonard shrugs, tosses this away like it’s nothing. “I’m overreacting.”

Jim’s hands are sweaty, soaked, and he’s flushed, already pale skin shaded a deep pink. He’s frustrated, out of wits, and maybe this truly is a no-win scenario. “We can stop trying, if you really want. We have Joanna.” There’s disappointment lingering beneath the frustration, it’s there in his voice, in his posture, in the sweaty grip of his hands.

“I’m sorry, Jim,” Leonard says quietly, pulling away, his fingers easily sliding out of Jim’s grasp. “I just can’t, not right now. We can’t.”

Jim straightens up, slides his hands down the front of his shirt, wrestling out imaginary wrinkles that just aren’t there. He clears his throat and just like that he’s the captain and not Leonard’s husband. “Of course. I should get back to the bridge.”

Leonard waits for Jim to leave and then doses himself with a month’s supply of contraceptive. The hypospray has never hurt more in his life.

*

Life continues to go on. Joanna grows and grows, has a spurt like a sycamore tree and she’s _seven_ , then _eight_ going on _thirty_. Leonard patches up idiots who blow themselves up in engineering; Jim risks his life in every stupid way possible on every away mission he doesn’t need to be on.

They live in this black, on a fucking tin can with walls so thin that Leonard swears they’re bound to buckle any day now. One tiny crack, that’s all it takes. So what if Leonard doesn’t sleep more than two to three hours a night. So what if his eyes are black and blue and there’s a crevice forming in his marriage as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon.

So what.

*

And then the dreams stop and Leonard finds himself with his head in the toilet every fucking morning. He doesn’t even have to run a tricorder over himself to make this diagnosis.

*

“But you’ve been dosing yourself with birth control,” Jim protests as he paces back and forth, back and forth, from one side of their small cabin to the other. “That shit is one hundred percent effective. I’ve read enough of the literature to know!”

Nothing is one hundred percent, nothing. Not even in these advanced ages when they can fly from world to world, solar system to solar system. Sometimes medicine can’t save a life and sometimes it can’t prevent conception. “It failed.”

Jim stops pacing, comes to a stop right in front of Leonard, and they’re close, nose to nose, and chest to chest. He’s breathing hard and his shirt slides against Leonard’s with every heave. “What are you going to do? Are you going to…” He looks away then and hurt flits across his face, then anger, and emotions Leonard can’t begin to read.

Leonard’s thought about it, thought about fixing the problem before Jim ever knew anything about it. It would have been quick, easy, a small, helpless skeleton to hang in Leonard’s ever growing closet. But he couldn’t bring himself to load the hypo, couldn’t even stop his hands from shaking enough to get near the vial.

And now he shakes his head and with gentle fingers, he turns Jim’s head to look at him. “I hope you have some names in mind.”

Jim huffs out a laugh and his arms snake around Leonard’s waist. “I have dozens, Bones. Dozens.”

Holding on tight, Leonard listens to Jim list out every name that’s ever so much as crossed his mind. He can hardly breathe and Jim is a heavy, warm weight against his chest. It reminds him of his dreams, of the flames and the heat, and he tells himself over and over again that dreams mean nothing. _Nothing_.

 *

Joanna presses her small hands against Leonard’s bare abdomen. “He’s in there?” She’s old enough to know the logistics of pregnancy, to know what happens when a man loves a man or a woman but she’s still all wide eyes and non-stop questions.

It’s a boy, of course it is. Leonard’s known since the second he woke up and needed to dash to the bathroom. There was never any doubt and blue is slowly integrating itself into Joanna’s soon to be shared room.

“Yeah, baby girl. He’s in there.” He runs his fingers through Joanna’s hair, feeling the softness against his fingers and it’s far too long. He remembers when she had no hair and now it’s running down her back, curling around her shoulders. Time continues to elude Leonard and he supposes that one day, one day soon, he’s going to wake up and be old and gray and Joanna is going to be long gone with a family of her own.

“I want him to come out, Papa,” she says, giggling when the baby delivers a swift kick to Leonard’s abdomen. Her smile could light up a room and make him forget the shadows of what should be forgotten dreams (but they linger and linger even if can close his eyes and wake up eight hours later refreshed). This little girl is his greatest accomplishment and medical degrees, discovered cures and saving lives can’t even come close to competing. 

“So do I.” Leonard wonders about this child, what he looks like, if his hair will be blond or brown, if his eyes will be blue or hazel, if he’ll have his daddy’s laugh or his papa’s love of sarcasm. (But deep down, he already knows).

*

Leonard swears that Jim’s smile has never been wider, brighter, and whiter than it is now. Except for maybe when Joanna was nothing more than a positive reading on a tricorder. It’s like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders and the bruises beneath his eyes have been gone for a long, long time. This is the Jim Kirk Leonard married, the one who he threatened to throw up on and has, in fact, thrown up on him since.

“Are you happy?” Jim asks, one night when Leonard feels like the fucking Hindenburg and his ankles are swollen and there’s acid crawling its way up his esophagus and setting fire to his chest. Ever the dutiful husband, he has his hands wrapped around Leonard’s abdomen, rubbing soft circles into his skin and it feels something like bliss.

“Of course I am.” He isn’t sure he means it though and his silver tongue lingers even after all this time. Some old habits die hard.  

*

Christmas rolls around again and it bites Leonard on the ass, catches him unaware and ill prepared. He hasn’t lifted a finger to decorate the cabin (but Jim and Joanna have that covered), he hasn’t bought a gift or trimmed the tree (real, year after year and Sulu must have a fucking Christmas tree farm down in the botany lab). The pages of the calendar turn and turn and Leonard can hardly keep up anymore.

He’s been on bed rest for what feels like years and he’s swollen, cranky and if he didn’t know better, he’d swear he’s about to pop like a balloon. This baby boy needs to come out, sooner rather than later, if only to save the sad state of his bladder.

“Look, Papa!” Joanna is waving her new padd in his face and he didn’t even know this was something she wanted or even needed. He pats her on the head and smiles and tries, tries so goddamn hard not to think about his shitty parenting skills.

Leonard always thought he’d be a great father, someone to look up to and admire, someone to turn to for everything, but he’s none of that and probably never will be. And now he’s bringing a second life into this entire mess. Mistake, it’s a mistake, and it’s far too late to correct. 

And then he feels it, sometime after the last present has been torn open, the first contraction. It’s a familiar rippling across his abdomen, an unmistakable, disabling cramping that causes Leonard to clutch at his stomach, to grit his teeth and grunt like a wild animal.

Merry Christmas, Leonard McCoy. It’s time.

*

David Kirk-McCoy makes his way into the world a little before midnight on Christmas day. He has a head full of blonde hair, little hazel eyes and the cutest ski jump nose. Leonard has a hard time even looking at him.

“He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” Jim’s grin is the size of a dinner plate and he’s cradling their son against his chest, rocking him gently back and forth. He’s not even two hours old and this kid already has Jim wrapped around his tiny fingers. Naturally.

Leonard closes his eyes and turns his head away. He’s tired, so fucking tired. He wants to sleep and never wake up, to find out that there’s something beyond the misery that’s bound to be waiting in the years ahead. “Yeah.” He hasn’t held David once, hasn’t reached out to even touch his newborn son.

“You were terrific, Bones.” Leonard feels soft, wet lips pressed against his forehead and he smells _baby_ , powder and fresh diapers and his skin itches, begins to crawl and burn at the thought of holding this child. “Get some sleep. You need it.”

He waits and waits, until the smell has faded, until the soft cries have diminished and Jim’s boots have clicked down the hallway. Then Leonard opens his eyes and stares at the bright lights of Sickbay, at the monitor beeping away every detail of what is life itself.

There’s an ache in his abdomen, deep, gnawing pain that claws its way up into his chest and settles over his heart, and he knows it has nothing to do with the recent cesarean section. This is an ache that will never go away but grow and grow until it consumes him whole. It’s already got a head start.

*

Leonard has two months of paternity leave. Two months to take care of his child, to bond, to develop those instincts that were somehow lost in the many years since Joanna was this small, this tiny and innocent. He takes three days of his two months and then is back in Sickbay, wielding a healing hypospray.

“Aren’t you rushing it?” Jim asks, his arms full with a bundle of crying, fussing blue blankets. “M’Benga and Chapel can take care of things for now.”

“I don’t want this outbreak of Levodian flu to get out of control, Jim. I have a responsibility to this ship and its crew.” He presses a quick kiss to Jim’s cheek, nothing more than the ghost of flesh against flesh. Then he’s gone; he slips out and leaves the crying behind, leaves the bewildered and confused _hurt_ on Jim’s face behind.  

He buries himself in snotty noses and high fevers, comes in early, leaves late. And he knows he’s biding his time, waiting for the inevitable to happen, and this is even worse than the dreams. He can’t wake up from this. Leonard is living in a nightmare.

*

Uhura shows up to Sickbay for her usual contraception shot, right on time, like she does each and every month. She tilts her head to the side and closes her eyes, waiting for that familiar hiss.

“I stopped by your cabin to see your newest addition today,” she says, eyelids fluttering as Leonard presses the hypospray against her skin. “He’s adorable.”

“Thanks.” And if this was years ago and they were talking about his daughter, Leonard would have gushed, would have taken the time to show Uhura every picture on his padd that she certainly didn’t want to see. But this isn’t eight years ago, he’s not as young as he used to be, and this Leonard McCoy is all business. “You’re finished here. I’ll see you again in a month.”

Uhura catches his hand before he sweeps out of the room. “Really, he’s precious, Len. How can you even stand to be away from him?” There’s a smile on her perfectly painted lips, eagerness in her eyes and he knows that she wants what he has, that maybe she’s beginning to rethink these monthly shots. What she doesn’t know is that he’s nobody to be jealous of and Leonard wouldn’t wish this on his worst enemy.

“I don’t know,” Leonard replies, pulling his hand away. What he really doesn’t know is how it can be so _easy_ to stay away.

*

Leonard can’t pretend to be surprised when Jim corners him one morning when he’s trying to slink away yet again, two hours early for his shift.

“I don’t know what is going on with you but this is going to stop, Bones.” Jim is hidden in the shadows of the pitch dark cabin. There’s no artificial lighting, no computer generated sun rise pouring in through false windows. There’s just darkness and more darkness and this is a typical morning in the black. “You’re off the duty roster for the day.”

“You can’t do that!” But of course he can, Jim’s the fucking captain and he can do what he wants, when he wants. Leonard always knew getting into bed with the ultimate authority figure was going to bite him in the ass one day. “I have shit to do.”

Jim smiles, presses his hands against Leonard’s uniform covered chest. “You’re staying here, with your son and your daughter. For the entire day.” He pats Leonard on the cheek and then he’s gone, slipped away like water through too large cracks in his fingers and he’s the very image of Leonard himself for the past few months. The bastard.

Then Leonard can’t avoid it any longer, can’t hide in his office or bury his head in paperwork. David starts crying and he’s the only one there, the only one who can provide for this tiny and innocent human being he helped bring into this world.

So he picks him up, carefully, slowly, like this is something new when in reality it’s just the rust failing off the hinges. He cradles the boy to his chest, looks down into his small, angelic face, and this is it, this is what Leonard was trying to avoid so goddamn hard.

It takes only a second, only the sliver of a moment, but it happens. Leonard McCoy instantly, irreversibly falls in love with this little boy.

Goddamn it.

*

Leonard takes the rest of his paternity leave, adds a week and another week until he dreads leaving the cabin, leaving his little girl and his little boy. He’s wasted so much time already, let it slip away and away with ignorance and stupidity. And now he tries to hold onto what he can, for as long as he can and it’s hardly enough, it’s never enough.

David grows and grows, he crawls, then walks, then speaks and Leonard is there for all of it. He doesn’t want to miss any of it, doesn’t want to wake up one day and wonder what the month is or how David got so old and he never fucking noticed. No, he’s not letting it happen again. He’s not going to miss chunks of his life and regret it later.

So he stays, he watches, he waits.

Joanna grows, from a child into a preteen. Her skirts get shorter along with her attention span and she drools far too hard over Chekov. She’s a good girl though, the best daughter Leonard could ask for, and he forgets his regrets, forgets them all, and when she skins her knee, he’s there to patch it up, when she cries, he’s there to mop up her tears. He’s there now even when he wasn’t before.

And then there’s Jim, who looks at him with those ridiculous eyes and stupid grin. Jim, who presses him hard into the mattress night after night and tries so goddamn hard to make him forget the long lost ghosts of dreams and whispers.

“I’m sorry,” Leonard says one night, when the children are asleep and Jim has his hand wrapped around Leonard’s cock. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Jim smiles, not that wide toothy familiar grin that everyone gets to see, the one that gets him out of trouble with Pike or smooth talks the restless natives. No, this is a smile, soft and hidden, the one only Leonard ever gets to see. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Bones. Nothing.”

It’s a lie, it has to be, and maybe Jim has had a silver tongue all this time too, because Leonard has everything in the world, the goddamn universe, to be sorry for. But he lets the lie go, swallows it down along with a moan. Jim has always, always been great at distractions. 

*

Every Friday evening, when the lights are dim and there is only bare bones medical staff on hand to handle emergencies, Leonard takes David to Sickbay.

He lets him run, weave in and out of the empty biobeds, and lets him play with an empty and locked hypospray. He lets him touch anything that is safe, anything that catches his eye and won’t put it out in turn. Leonard lets his son be a kid - a curious, wandering kid.

And if Leonard happens to run a tricorder over David’s head as he runs by, if he doses him with vitamins and minerals when he’s distracted with the hypospray, it’s only out of concern.

It’s only an empty attempt to avoid the inevitable.

*

When David is three, Leonard sits him down beneath the Christmas tree and hugs him tight to his chest. “Today is your birthday, baby boy, did you know that?” He wiggles his fingers into the space beneath David’s rib cage, tickles and tickles until the boy is a squirming mess of giggles and laughter in his lap.

“Stop!” David tucks his head into Leonard’s shoulder, his laughs soft, warm against Leonard’s neck. “Papa, stop!”

Leonard stills his hands and holds the boy tightly, like he’ll slip away if he lets go, like the walls will finally, _finally_ , break apart and rip the child away from him. “Happy birthday, David,” he says, pressing his lips against the boy’s messy blonde locks.

“Merry Christmas, Papa!”

This is the best Christmas Leonard will ever have, surrounded by his family, sitting beneath the Douglas-fir. And while Leonard doesn’t know it (and yet, he does, he really does), this is also the last Christmas he’ll spend like this. 

*

It was bound to happen, inevitable, a fate Leonard couldn’t change with vitamins and minerals and weekly check-ups. David is four – only four fucking years old when it happens, when Leonard runs the tricorder over a blur of motion and a clean bill of health does not pop up in return.

“Xenopolycythemia,” Leonard says softly, brushing the hair off David’s sweat soaked forehead. “It’s terminal.”

And Leonard can’t even look at Jim, can’t stand to see the devastation written all over his face, the despair. “How long, Len? How long?” Jim’s strong hand is crushing his shoulder, cutting off the circulation, but Leonard can’t be bothered to even care.

“A year, maybe less.” Leonard mops the sweat from David’s face, slides his fingers down his heated cheek. He tries not to think that this face will never change, never age. And this is all Leonard’s fault, there is no one else to blame. “I’ll try my best, Jim. I won’t sleep…”

“I know you will.”

*

The long hours in the lab, the endless debates with Spock, one fruitless experiment after another – none of it pays off. None of it can save a life.

Leonard isn’t smart enough, isn’t fast enough, doesn’t have access to the right resources. He can’t stop this from happening but he tries anyway. He spends his days and nights tucked away in the lab, doesn’t come out unless he sees Jim’s haggard face peeking in from outside of the locked door.

“What will happen?” Jim asks, one night when Joanna is safe in bed and Sickbay is a virtual ghost town. His hands shake, from too much caffeine, from too many stimulants that Leonard won’t refuse to give him. It’s a miracle upon miracle that Spock hasn’t forced him from duty yet. “I want to know.”

He takes Jim by the hand, sits him down by a plethora of petri dishes that mean nothing, that yield nothing that will help. “Don’t do this. You don’t need to know the gory details.” Leonard presses his gloved hand against his husband’s face, his thumb tracing the deep and dark bruising beneath his eyes (and it feels like just yesterday that these had finally faded).

“Will it be painful? Is he going to suffer?”

Leonard swallows past the hard lump that’s been sitting in his throat for months now. He lets his hand fall from Jim’s face and looks away, and this is answer enough for Jim.

Jim buries his face in his hands and his voice is thick, hoarse when he speaks. “What are we going to do?”

“Spend as much time with him as possible,” Leonard responds, burying his hands in Jim’s hair, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head. “There’s nothing more we can do.”

Without a word, without a look or even a nod, it’s decided. Leonard abandons the lab and they head home – they head to Earth.

*

They rent a small apartment down the street from Starfleet Academy in San Francisco. Close enough for Jim to check in every now and again, far enough away to forget the black, forget the years and years they spent bending to its every whim.

Joanna stays at home, to spend time with her brother, and is tutored by Jim when he’s feeling up to it and by a Starfleet educator when he’s not. She’s old enough to understand life and death, but she’s never seen it, never touched it, and when she sits with David, when she talks to him in that soft, sweet voice, it’s with nothing but love and hope.

The _Enterprise_ goes on without them, visits brave new worlds, and Leonard doesn’t miss it at all. He doesn’t miss waking up without sunshine or patching Jim up every other week. He doesn’t miss a goddamn thing about the black.

“Are you sorry?” Jim asks, one night, when Joanna is reading to David off her padd, and they’re alone in their small bedroom. “Are you sorry we brought him into this world?”

It’s a loaded fucking question and one that knocks Leonard through a loop. Is he sorry he didn’t abort this child when he had the chance? Is he sorry he brought him here only to watch him die a slow and painful death, that he didn’t listen to his dreams? Is he? “No,” he says, lacing his fingers through Jim’s.

He could never, ever fucking regret bringing this brilliant, smiling life into the universe. He’s only sorry he can’t stop it from being taken away.

*

It’s the week before Christmas when it happens.

David falls asleep one night, after he’s been tucked in and told a bedtime story. He falls asleep and he doesn’t wake up. His chest rises and falls, rises and falls, and then stops. His tight grip on Leonard’s hand loosens, his face slackens, and that is it.

Leonard’s dreams weren’t completely right – there were no flames, no fire, but in the end, Leonard couldn’t save him all the same.

He wraps his arm around Jim’s heaving shoulders and they grieve together, silently.

*

They bury him in Iowa, next to the empty grave of George Kirk.

Leonard lingers after the ceremony is over, after the guests have gone and everyone has patted him on the back, said a sincere _I’m sorry_ and then left to go back to their perfect, whole families. Leonard stays, his fingers tracing the engraving on the smooth headstone, over the too few years his son was alive. 

“I dreamed about you, about this,” he says and he isn’t even sure why. He runs his hand across the stone once more and then pulls away, as if he’s been burnt, as if there’s suddenly molten lava beneath his fingertips. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a better father. I’m sorry you had to suffer and that I couldn’t save you.”

He feels a tug at his hand and he looks down and sees Joanna, her cheeks rosy, her eyes red and watering. “You’re a great father.”

Leonard pulls her into his side and wraps his arm around her. He stands there with her, until the sun has gone down, until he can see his breath and barely the hand in front of his face. Then they leave, leave David alone, next to an empty grave and thousands and thousands of strangers.

And it’s all Leonard’s fault.

*

There is no Christmas this particular year. There’s no birthday celebration either. No unwrapping presents, no Christmas tree, real or otherwise, no party hats, no laughter.

There is, however, a broken family, missing an essential part, never again to be whole. And they sit together, in the living room of a rented apartment, with uncomfortable furniture they didn’t pick out, with sterile white walls glaring back at them.

Leonard sits there, with Joanna pressed against his side, her small arm looped around his, and he stares at his hands, at the hands that couldn’t save a life. He isn’t sure how to move on from this, how to function with a piece of his heart missing. So he sits and stares and tries not to think about it at all.

This is the worst Christmas Leonard has. It can’t possibly get any worse.

*

Jim wakes Leonard up in the middle of the night and he knows it’s the middle of the night because there is actual moonlight streaming in through his window, and there are crickets chirping, and if he wanted to, he could walk outside and feel the dirt between his toes without suffocating to death.

Jim wakes Leonard up with one sentence on his lips, “This isn’t your fault.” He puts his hand out, rests a single finger against Leonard’s soon to be protesting mouth. “No, shut up. This isn’t your fault. I don’t care what you dreamed about. You tried your best to save him.”

Leonard says nothing because what is there to say to that. Jim is so finite, so firm, that Leonard can almost believe it. But the dreams – the dreams must have meant something.

“Sometimes dreams are just dreams, Leonard. None of this is your fault.” Jim presses a solid hand against Leonard’s chest, and there’s a gleam in his eye, a tremble in his lip and Leonard knows how this is going to end.

Leonard wipes a stray tear from Jim’s cheek. “Okay, Jim.” And he chooses to believe this, wants to believe this so bad he can feel it in every single bone in his body. So he nods his head, wraps his arms around his husband, and as he falls asleep, he tells himself over and over again that this isn’t his fault.

One day he’ll believe it too.

*

Six months pass by. Maybe more, maybe less. Leonard starts to lose track of time again but when there’s nothing to do but sit on the sofa and watch awful movies on the vidscreen, there’s no real purpose to time anyway.

He teaches Joanna biology sometimes, helps her with math homework when he can. His calculus is rusty and his trigonometry is nonexistent. He does what he can, helps where he can, but otherwise, there’s no purpose to anything anymore.

Then Jim stands in front of him one day, blocking his view of the vidscreen. “Our bereavement leave is up.”

“What?”

“We have to go back to Starfleet.”

What Jim means to say is they have to go back to the black. They have to go back to risking their lives, risking _Joanna’s_ life. He doesn’t say it but it’s there, in the weight of his shoulders, the deep creases in his forehead.

There is no arguing about this, no fighting or stomping of feet. There is no use. They signed contracts, long ago, and the fact that they’ve even gotten this much time off is a goddamn miracle. So Leonard says nothing, keeps his mouth shut, and begins to pack his bags.

*

And things slowly, slowly return to normal. Leonard patches up idiots; Jim risks his life. This was their life before and this will be their life after. And maybe over time they’ll just forget there was anything else, that there was another life to hold in their arms at night, to sing to sleep, to love.

Leonard works his fingers to the bone, works on saving each and every life that he can but he can’t make up for the one he couldn’t save. He can try, try to forget but in the end, he never will.

How do you forget a little boy, a gaping hole? It’s impossible.

*

They’re somewhere over Feros, a small mining colony in the outer reaches of the Milky Way, when Joanna tugs on Leonard’s hand.

“Can we beam down to the surface?” She’s thirteen now and she’s almost up to Leonard’s shoulder. He hardly has to look down to see his little girl anymore. Then again, she’s hardly a little girl at all but a young woman (and again, he wonders where the time has gone).

Leonard wraps his fingers around Joanna’s hand, and it still fits neatly into his palm. Maybe he hasn’t lost as much time as he thought. “What? Why?”

“I was talking to the Ferian elder’s boy. He says the planet is beautiful, especially around this time of year. I want to see the mountains, Papa, and the snow.”

“Joanna, you’ve seen snow before.” He doesn’t want to beam down anywhere, doesn’t want to sightsee or otherwise. There’s a bottle of bourbon under his desk calling his name.

Joanna’s grip tightens in his hand. “Please. It’s Christmas.”

Christmas? Has it already been a year? A year since his world fell down around his ears, since his heart ripped open and never, ever patched back up correctly.

And goddamn if he can say _no_ to that.

*

Bundled up in heavy coats and gloves, they beam down to the planet, only after Leonard has checked it out and deemed it safe enough for Joanna to step foot on. The atmosphere is safe, the soil isn’t toxic, the plant life isn’t sentient. It’s safe as houses or should be.

And Joanna was right. It is beautiful. Snowcapped mountains, trees taller than the eye can see, and it’s so white, Leonard is almost blinded. Everything is white and Leonard has never seen a winter like this – Georgia doesn’t get snow like this, no more than a dusting usually. This is spectacular, stunning really, and David would have loved to play in this.

They walk together, Jim and Leonard, trudging through the snow drifts, Joanna a petite, constant presence between them. They each hold onto her hand, hold on tightly until they see a building in the distance. It’s small but oddly familiar, with double winged doors and a large steeple. 

“Can we go in?” Joanna asks, her breath lingering in the air in front of her. “Please?”

And today, today of all days, Leonard can’t deny his little girl anything.

*

It’s a church, that’s exactly what this place is, complete with pews and an altar. Leonard isn’t sure what or who the Ferians worship but this is a church if he’s ever seen one. The inside is warm, soft and candle-lit; it’s inviting, a sanctuary from the harsh winter, and Leonard slips off his gloves and shoves them into the pocket of his parka. He doesn’t mind staying a while.

There are candles lit along the aisle leading to the altar and then dozens and dozens of candles decorating this as well. It’s intimate, almost romantic, and Leonard puts an ungloved hand on Joanna’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go and light one?”

He slips into a pew and Jim sits beside him. “David would have loved this,” Jim states, his fingers lacing together with Leonard’s. “He would have loved the snow, the candles, everything.”

Leonard keeps a keen eye on Joanna, watches as she approaches the altar and takes an unlit candle. She kneels and lights her candle, her lips moving softly, in a prayer maybe, it’s hard to tell. 

“Happy birthday, David,” she says, and this is plain as day, loud enough for Leonard to hear and it makes him squeeze his fingers around Jim’s.

Leonard is so proud of this little girl he managed to raise – someway, somehow, she’s turned out pretty okay. Maybe it’s in spite of her Papa, maybe it isn’t, but she’s a strong girl with a good head on her shoulders, and that’s all he’s ever wanted for her. This is a girl who is going to be just fine.

He closes his eyes, just for a moment, and then brings Jim’s palm to his lips. “Merry Christmas, Jim.” This isn’t the best Christmas they’ve had and it certainly isn’t the worst, but they’re together and that is all that matters.

Slowly but surely, Leonard knows that the gaping hole in his chest is beginning to heal. They’re all going to be fine, just fine. All they need is time.

*

Leonard is running, the grass beneath his feet soft, velvety almost, and there are no wounds on his feet, no trails of blood in his wake.

_Papa!_

He hears the whisper, as clear as day, and he looks around, his head shooting from one side to the other. “David! Where are you?” He skids to a halt, his toes digging into the moist dirt, and he’s desperate to see his little boy one more time, so desperate that he feels the ache deep down in the pit of his abdomen.

And there he is, in the distance, smiling, waving, and there’s someone with him. Another child, smaller, maybe two or three, and this one is all blonde hair and blue eyes and devilish grin. This child is a pure Jim Kirk clone.

“David?”

But David just waves and the other child begins running, running so hard that she…it’s a girl…she stumbles just a bit over her own feet. Then she straightens up and she’s getting closer and closer until she launches herself right into Leonard’s open arms.

She’s perfect, this little girl is perfect. She smells like baby powder and moist earth and – and –

Leonard wakes up to Jim’s concerned upside down smile, to the deep, immovable lines in his forehead. “Bones? Are you okay?” Jim’s hand is resting on Leonard’s shoulder, and his grip is tight, bruising and overly familiar.

“Yeah,” Leonard says, and he truly, deep down believes this. “I’m fine. We’re fine.” He pulls Jim against his chest and closes his eyes to fall asleep.

He can’t wait to dream again.

* 


End file.
